


Destiny

by T Verano (t_verano)



Category: TS - Fandom
Genre: AU (unspecified historical British), Community: sentinel_thurs, Gen, Sentinel Thursday
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-05
Updated: 2017-06-05
Packaged: 2020-03-06 03:06:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,705
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18842362
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/t_verano/pseuds/T%20Verano
Summary: James Ellison most reluctantly encounters a blue-eyed gypsy and an unlooked-for destiny.





	Destiny

**Author's Note:**

> AU (unresearched, and including a possibly inept attempt to pretend I'm more British than American, all the way down to spelling; please feel free to point out any missteps)
> 
> Please note: aside from the above, I also deliberately broke a punctuation rule (probably) and a personal fic-structure rule (definitely). Just, you know, FYI. \

The moon was a fat crescent high in the heavens, its silvered brightness crossed briefly from time to time by the small, high clouds the night wind was badgering across the sky.  Stars in their familiar patterns brought a lesser but still notable light to complement their lunar mistress, and beneath it all the land lay as a patchwork of dark woods and lighter fields and pastures.  Down where the river emerged from its cover of trees, fitful glints of reflected moonlight rose from the surface of the wind-harried water.

Any other man standing at the south parapet of Castle Prospect's roof might have taken note of the wild beauty of the night as he looked down upon the rolling land spread before his eyes, but not the man standing there now.  By preference, Lord Ellison's elder son and heir seldom spared a thought to aught but duty.

Part of that duty, as James Ellison saw it, was watching over his father's lands; albeit neither for his father's sake nor for the sake of the value of his future inheritance, as one might expect. His care – his first duty, as appointed by his conscience – centered on the safety and well-being of the nearby village and the estate's many tenants and dependents. This night he had particular reason to be watchful, for a band of gypsies had invaded the countryside's peace during the afternoon and had chosen to camp for the night in the water meadow at the bend where the river turned its flow more easterly.

James frowned. Gypsies. 'Travellers'. Thieves, often enough, and troublemakers. The sooner they moved on the better.

Light from a dozen campfires flickered up from the meadow, forming an erratic pattern that from this distance resembled a scatter of golden sparks. There was nothing more to be seen from here, and James's frown deepened. Nothing to be seen, nothing to be done, despite his concern; one man alone, no matter how vigilant and dedicated, could hardly keep watch on an entire band of gypsies even if he spent the night in plain sight of their encampment. Still, James lingered, finding his eyes drawn to one particular golden spark, one specific campfire at the edge of the encampment nearest the castle. 

There was no reason in it, yet the distant light compelled his gaze, reeled it in towards itself as though it were a skilled angler triumphantly reeling in one of the wily and elusive trout that haunted his father's stretch of the river.

James was annoyed. He was also well and truly caught, unable to look away. Moreover, the campfire appeared to grow rapidly – and quite impossibly – closer as he stared at it. It was all imagination, of course, but within the span of a mere handful of heartbeats his mind deceived him that he was close enough to see the very ash forming as the well-laid branches gave themselves over to the consuming flames. 

Further, his errant mind deceived him that he was close enough to see, as well, a gypsy woman standing on the far side of the fire. 

In truth, the woman was worth the imagining, strikingly lovely and somewhat fairer than one would expect for a gypsy. If one removed the gold bangles bedecking her wrists, the gold hoops glinting from her ears, and the gold and amber necklet curving around her throat, put her hair up respectably, and gave her something fashionable to wear, her appearance would grace any dinner party or ball in the county. 

James nearly smiled at that thought. It would – if she were not merely an odd, although rather appealing, fragment of his imagination.

It did not speak well of his imagination, of course, to be granting such attention to a gypsy woman even if only in fancy. His father would be enraged at the very thought, and the certainty of that knowledge brought James's previously suppressed smile fully to his lips. Still, the satisfaction of provoking his father could never override common sense. Gypsies were gypsies no matter how lovely – or imaginary – and the only truck James wanted with them was to watch the dust rising from the road behind their backs as they moved on to the next village. 

James smiled again, ready to dismiss this strange interlude of fancy – perhaps the fish at dinner had been a trifle off? – and turn away from the parapet and his campfire 'view'. 

His fancy apparently wasn't done with him, though. His lovely gypsy woman was looking at someone seated on the ground next her skirts, and once again James found himself the reeled-in trout, compelled to 'see' that someone for himself. 

'See' he did, though what purpose his imagination could have for the sight was a puzzlement. A vision of a lovely woman carried its own reward, but this, an image of a young man sitting cross-legged behind the fire and staring into its depths? What possible reward could come of this? 

Yet he could not break his gaze away from the delusion. The young man looked little more likely to be full-blooded Romany than the woman standing beside him; he wasn't dark enough, not when the unbound hair that brushed his shoulders in a wind-snarled tangle of loose curls was such a mixture of browns and chestnuts and coppers, not with eyes that were such an intense and sea-bright blue.

_The blue of bewitchment._ And that was a ludicrous thought; James was far too rational to believe in bewitchment. He was tired, and this was nothing more than the idle play of a mind ready to fall into sleep. Or perhaps it was due to that piece of injudiciously prepared fish at dinner, after all.

But poorly handled fish aside, he _was_ weary and he should retire. Why, then, did he still find himself unable to look away from his imaginary young man? 

An ordinary young man, surely, even if the gypsy looked the very sort of 'romantic' rogue to turn a foolish village girl's head, with that untamed hair and those intense eyes. The night air held a chill but the young man seemed warmed enough by the campfire, judging by what James could 'see' of his apparel: aside from trousers that looked to be made of leather rather than wool, he wore only a loose linen shirt – remarkably white considering a gypsy's life, and most unrespectably open at the collar. The breeze toyed with his hair, and James caught the glint of gold at one of the gypsy's ears. 

A stronger gust of wind took the fire's flames higher, and the young man looked up; directly, so it seemed, into James's eyes. 

_The blue of bewitchment._ Which could not be, as bewitchment did not exist. But why, then, did the gypsy's eyes hold James's gaze so compellingly, with their disturbing hint of challenge?

Something far too akin to a shiver ran through James, and he scowled. It was foolish enough to let his mind play such optical tricks on him, but far more foolish to be so disturbed by them. 

With a wrench that was discomfitingly physical James finally managed to tear his eyes away from his imaginary gypsy's gaze and turn away to walk across the roof to the stairwell and seek out his chambers.

That sleep would elude him the whole of the night he was soon to discover, as he lay awake hour after hour and sought to come to grips with the challenge he'd imagined seeing in a pair of intensely blue eyes. 

\+ + + + + +

"You'll be staying on in the morning, then," Naomi said, her happiness for her son and her pride in him as clear in her voice as her sadness at the imminent parting. She wrapped her shawl more closely around herself and smiled, a little ruefully. "I take it that was your _baxt_."

"It was," Blair agreed. "My destiny."  He spared Naomi a quick smile of his own before his gaze returned to the dark, distant bulk of the castle, where the man who was his destiny would try – and fail – to sleep tonight.

"Destiny is not always comfortable, _te'  sorthene,_ " Blair murmured to the man in the castle.

\+ + + + + +

"Destiny is not always comfortable, _te' sorthene._ "

The words seemed to hang in the air, coming out of nowhere to halt James mid-step when he was halfway down the last flight of stairs on the way to his quarters.

There was no one anywhere nearby to have spoken those words, James was sure of it.

He closed his eyes and rubbed the bridge of his nose in frustration. The fish at dinner had much to answer for, as did his weariness and his out-of-control imagination.

James started down the stairs again, resolutely trying to push those odd, weighted words with the foreign-sounding syllables at the end out of his thoughts, to forget the warm, rich, sound of that voice.

But he could not quite manage to forget that it had been – that he had imagined it to be – a compelling voice, one that could easily be the partner to a pair of compelling blue eyes.

\+ + + + + +

The morning was well advanced before James could take horse and ride to the meadow where the gypsies had camped overnight. They were there no longer; Tommy Welkin had seen them leaving as he crossed the south pasturelands on his way to consult with the estate's poultryman – an issue with several hens that were bad layers, or so James understood.

That the estate's uninvited guests had moved on so quickly was good news. Now he merely had to check the meadow to be sure there was no more damage than the remains of a dozen hours-dead campfires. If the gypsies had been the cause of any trouble for the estate's tenants, he would learn of it soon enough.

The big black stallion James was riding snorted and tossed his head as they neared the water meadow. James could hardly blame him; the scent of ash was trapped in the late morning mist still rising from the river, and there was a lingering foreignness to the air that James found irritating.

He pulled Sentinel up as they reached the edge of the now-deserted encampment, then turned in the saddle to look back at the castle. In the morning light the imaginings of last night seemed laughable. That he had spent so many sleepless hours due to those imaginings was somewhat less laughable, but surely he could now completely dismiss the entire incident – if one could call something that had never in fact happened an 'incident'.

Across the encampment, in the copse of trees alongside the riverbank, a twig snapped. Sentinel tossed his head again, and James patted his neck reassuringly; the horse was always high-spirited, but he seemed more on edge than usual this morning.

Another twig snapped and James frowned, shifting his attention from Sentinel to the thin band of trees beside the river, where the mist was heaviest.

Where a man was standing. Where a young man was standing –

Sentinel reared, whinnying, and James fought to keep his seat and to get the stallion under control. That battle won, he fought to get himself under control before he turned his attention away from his froward horse back towards the edge of the woods.

The young man was still there, a young man with long, loose brown curls – brown and chestnut and copper curls a little flattened from the damp mist – with gold glinting at his ear, wearing a white linen shirt open at the collar and brown leather trousers and boots, his eyes blue like the sea.

Blue like the sea, the blue of bewitchment...

He'd gone mad. James had gone mad. That was the only possible explanation.

"I don't usually have that effect on horses," the young man from James's imagination who could not possibly be there said with a regretful smile. "My apologies. I think you may have choked down on the reins a little, though, when you saw me? Most likely because it wasn't the first time you've seen me?"

"You're mistaken," James grated out between clenched jaws. He was speaking to an apparition, a delusion. The likelihood that he'd lost his sanity brought anger as well as fear. "You're mistaken about my horsemanship, and you are most assuredly mistaken about my having seen you before."

The young man's smile became oddly eager. "It wasn't your imagination, any of it, what you saw last night. You have a gift that's just beginning to come to the surface. Your eyes, your ears – all of your senses – are uncommonly –"

"All of my senses are fine, _normal,_ " James snapped. Normal was acceptable, anything other than normal was not.

The gypsy made some sort of gesture with his hands that was clearly intended to be soothing, and suddenly James was certain that he was no delusion. And if this gypsy was no delusion, last night's imaginings had not been imaginings, either.

It had to have been trickery somehow, all of it. Gypsies were tricksters and troublemakers and thieves, and the gypsy's words were nothing less than a threat. "I'll thank you to get off our property now and take your thieving, lying gypsy ways with you," James said grimly. "Whatever your game may be, you'll find no success with it here."

The young man frowned. "It's not a game; it's your life, your destiny. I can prove it to you."

'Your destiny'.

_'Destiny is not always comfortable'_.

God have mercy on him, it was that voice; the voice from the staircase. James scowled. How could he not have recognised it before?

_Trickery._ How it had been accomplished, James had no idea, but trickery was certainly a more acceptable explanation than madness. Or bewitchment.

"Hear me out at least," the voice said, and now it held a hint of challenge in it. That same challenge was in the young man's eyes.

Just as it had seemed to be last night.

"There is nothing unnatural about this, about what you can do. You don't lack courage, James Ellison. Hear me out!"

No, James did not lack courage, but he was beginning to lack patience. He chose the most innocuous part of the man's statement to respond to, ignoring the rest. "You know my name," he stated flatly.

In itself that wasn't unlikely; anyone for miles around could give a fair description of Lord Ellison's elder son, topped off with a description of his favourite horse for good measure.

"I know your name," the gypsy agreed, another smile playing about his lips.

"Whereas I have no desire to know yours," James continued, bestowing a fierce glare upon the troublesome young man. "Be off with you, or I'll have the dogs set on you."

"You can call me Blair," the gypsy said, apparently discarding as irrelevant everything James had just forcefully declared. "I can help you."

"I don't need your help." James felt the muscles of his jaw bunch. Sentinel moved uneasily beneath him, reacting to his tension, and James made a concerted effort to quell his anger. "Furthermore, were there anything I needed help with – which there is not – I would hardly seek help from a gypsy."

"A troublemaker. A thief, by reputation." The young man – 'Blair' he'd called himself, not that knowledge of his name was of the slightest use to James – smiled ruefully. "Actually, I never steal. I may… borrow creatively, from time to time, but your horseflesh and your family silver are safe from me. And you do need help. Your senses –"

A flash of white in the sky captured James's attention momentarily: a gull, farther inland than usual this time of year, coasting high overhead on a current of air. The bright white and silvery grey of its feathers drew James's eyes. The texture was mesmerizing; he could see each individual feather, sleek against the supporting air. He could see –

He could see matted meadow grasses an inch from his nose. He was lying face down on the ground, his left ankle throbbing mildly as if he'd twisted it slightly, and he had no idea how he'd got there. The meadow grasses an inch from his nose were accompanied by a pair of brown leather boots: 'Blair', crouching beside him.

James rolled away from the gypsy and sat up, ignoring the complaints from his ankle concerning the movement.

"What the devil?" he said, fixing his observer with a hard gaze. "Explain this."

"Your gift comes with a price," the gypsy Blair said, dropping from his crouch to sit cross-legged upon the grasses. "If you concentrate too fully on a single sense, you can get lost in that sense and become temporarily unaware of the rest of the world around you. That's what happened just now. You were watching a bird flying, lost in what you were seeing, and your horse grew restless; I assume he didn't appreciate his rider turning into an unresponsive statue. When a dog barked nearby, he reared – which I think wasn't so much about the barking as it was him expressing his opinion about you no longer paying any attention to him – and, ah, you fell off. Your foot got caught in the stirrup; are you injured?"

"No," James said shortly. A thoughtless movement caused him to wince, and he reluctantly amended his refusal. "A minor complaint in my ankle, nothing of concern." Belatedly, he looked about for Sentinel.

"Behind you," gypsy Blair said, and James turned to discover his horse standing quietly at the edge of the copse, his reins looped over a low-lying branch.

There was at least some truth in what this Blair had just said. James remembered watching the gull – and he remembered naught else while he was watching it. The world around him had seemingly disappeared while he had been so enamoured with the bird's flight. That Sentinel had grown impatient at James's inattention and expressed his displeasure in such a manner was plausible; the stallion was not only high-spirited but high-tempered.

Yet... It was impossible to see at such distance.

"Let me show you something." The gypsy stood up then quickly walked over to the wood, disappearing momentarily between the mist-shrouded tree trunks before reappearing with a large canvas pack slung over his shoulder.

James watched his approach warily. He could not see any way that trickery could have been employed just now, but he had no intention of trusting this person, this Blair.

Blair sat back down beside James and pulled a battered leather-bound journal and a quill pen from his pack. Tearing out a blank page from the journal, he held it against the leather cover and picked up the pen.

Picked it up, James noted, but brought out no ink. Then he made an odd pretence of writing something on the paper, merely pressing the dry nib of the pen against the surface.

When he was done with his foolish-seeming task, he handed the page to James. "Tell me what I wrote," he said.

James felt his eyebrows rise. There was nothing to see on the paper.

Blair shook his head slightly. "Not that way. You could use your eyesight to see the letters if you chose – as if they were engraving upon stone – but instead, try running your fingers over the paper and use the differences in texture to let your sense of touch 'see' the words." He held up one hand in a cautioning gesture and added, "You should also engage another one of your senses consciously as an anchor, which will keep you from getting lost in the sense you're focusing on and becoming unaware of everything else. For right now... use the river. Listen to the sound of the water for a few moments, then lock it into a background sound to serve as your anchor."

James clenched his jaw. Foolishness, this was all foolishness, and he did not appreciate playing the fool.

Still, there was his vision of the gull to account for, and his loss of awareness of everything but that gull. And gypsy Blair's face was carrying such an expression that James would have laughed at its absurd complexity if the situation had not been so far from amusing. Hope that was mingled with confidence, imperfectly banked excitement, and encouragement, which was clearly aimed at James – those were obvious. There also seemed to be something James could only name as pride, pride in _James,_ and James realised that against his will or not, he was going to do as Blair had asked.

Very well. _Use the sound of the river as an anchor..._ James listened to the quiet movement of the water briefly, then pushed the sound into the back of his mind as he began to run his fingers over Blair's paper.

It felt like paper, not of the best quality, but sturdy enough and smooth enough to serve its purpose in a bound journal. It felt like paper, that was all.

This was lunacy.

"Focus on the texture. No paper is perfectly smooth, and your fingers can feel that. They can map every tiny change in the surface so plainly that the map becomes more clearly detailed in your mind than the finest cartographer's work." Blair's voice was a confident murmur, and James felt some of Blair's confidence leach, unreasonably, into his own expectations.

...Or perhaps it wasn't so unreasonable after all. For now he could manifestly feel a curving indentation underneath his fingertips, a valley carved well below the surface of the paper, and beside it... beside it. ..

James's lips quirked upward. "'Sense of touch'?" he asked, somewhat sarcastically, perhaps, and came within a hair's-breadth of rolling his eyes.

Blair beamed at James, and James felt an unaccustomed warmth suffuse both his face and his strangely fast-beating heart. His father had never looked at him with such approval and pride, nor had anyone else that James could recall save his mother, and she had died back when he and Stephen were young enough to still be firmly ensconced in the nursery. Stephen had once admired him as an older brother, though, until –

Until he had started seeing things no one else could see and hearing things no one else could hear.

James closed his eyes in newly remembered pain and shame. How could he have forgotten such a disastrous time in his childhood? No one had believed him, or even wanted to believe him. And his father's former correctly measured if distant attention had suddenly become unmistakable avoidance of James, and when avoidance was impossible, it had become nothing less bitter than censure coloured with distaste.

"What is it?" Blair's voice sounded worried, and James pulled himself away from the past with an effort.

"Nothing that need concern you." James's reply was curt, more curt than he had intended, perhaps, but those memories were no one's business save his own. At least they put paid to any lingering thoughts he might have been harbouring concerning trickery on the gypsy's part.

Blair ducked his head in what would have been a perfect imitation of respectful acquiescence if James had not subsequently so clearly seen the light of a battle postponed in his eyes. Anger flared up in James – who was this person, this _gypsy_ to be so intrusive and so persistent, to... to care so much?

"Why are you doing this?" he asked, aware that his voice sounded harsh, but not inclined to attempt to temper it.

Blair looked at James in silence. His eyes were strangely intent – those eyes that were the blue of bewitchment – and James was assailed by the most curious sensation. There was... something between the two of them, something between him and Blair – a connexion of some sort. It almost felt like a pull towards a common centre.

It was absurd. A connexion with a stranger, a gypsy – a very odd gypsy. What 'common centre' could the two of them possibly share?

Aside, of course, from James's senses, which Blair seemed to understand far better than James did himself.

"Why am I doing this?" Blair repeated, breaking the silence at last. He gave James a small, slightly crooked smile. "Destiny," he said levelly. "Learning to use the gift of your senses to the full and making wise use of them is your destiny; helping you is mine." Then he added, very softly, " _Te' sorthene,_ " dropping his eyes to the ground. A mere moment later, before James could demand to know what those muttered words meant, he lifted his gaze back to James and spoke at a more normal volume. "Do you need more, to prove your senses? We can –"

"No," James interrupted. "I concede that I am currently in possession of unusual abilities, unlikely and irrational – and unwelcome – though they be. How is it that you know of such things?"

"Destiny," Blair said again, his smile broader. "You rue that I am a gypsy and not only not of your class but virtually an outcast in your world – but who except for a gypsy would travel so many strange roads and learn so many hidden things?"

It was a valid point. Unfortunately, so was the – unnecessary – reminder that James's world had very little tolerance for such as gypsies. If he wanted to have this gypsy close to hand for a time, to make use of his knowledge – how could he accomplish that? With proper attire and grooming, Blair could be made presentable outwardly and he was well-spoken and obviously intelligent, but to pass as a gentleman suitable for any Ellison to invite as a house guest, he would need far more than that.

James frowned. Who else, other than a to the manner born member of his set might he spend a considerable amount of time with, without remark?

Sentinel whickered softly, and James looked across the meadow at the big stallion, uncharacteristically placid for such circumstances as these, and considered. Clearly, Blair had a way with horses – he was a gypsy, after all – and perhaps...

Yes. It would serve. James spent many unquestioned hours with Stebbins, his groom, the two of them often riding out together to school James's horses. Stebbins answered to no one but James or the family and looked after no horses save for those belonging to James. The arrangement was not usual, but James had a taste for challenging mounts and for years had brooked no interference with his preferred means of managing them. And, fortuitously, Stebbins had recently requested leave, leave which would commence tomorrow, to visit his aging parents who lived a two-days' journey to the north.

Up until this very moment, James had regretted the necessity of granting that leave. Not only would it be disruptive to his small string of difficult-to-handle horses, but Stebbins was a companionable presence in James's life, more so than anyone else on the estate. Further, James feared that the fortnight's leave might turn into something more permanent; Stebbins was a dutiful son and an only child, and if his parents had need of him, he might not return at all.

James eyed Blair carefully. "Your destiny is to help me, you say. That would seem to require a certain proximity for a time, but I can hardly keep meeting you like this without occasioning suspicion, nor can I invite you to stay at the castle as a guest. However, I can offer you a temporary position as my personal groom for a fortnight. Your duties would be restricted to my orders only, and we would be able to spend a great deal of time together well away from the castle without exciting any undue attention. Are you willing?"

"I am _more_ than willing," Blair said, his face alight with enthusiasm. "When do we begin?"

Unobtrusively, James tested his ankle and found it much improved. "Now," he said. "Stebbins, my groom, takes his leave in the morning for a fortnight's absence. He can spend this afternoon helping you settle in and introducing you to my horses and the specific care they require."

"A fortnight... It's a start, at least," Blair said, so quietly that James wasn't sure he was meant to hear the words.

'A start'. Unaccountably, James found himself smiling.

Indeed, yes. It was a start.

**Author's Note:**

>  _baxt_ – karma, fortune, destiny  
>  _te'  sorthene_ – spirit/heart-friend


End file.
